BCA investigating fatal St. Paul police shooting of man in West Seventh neighborhood

St. Paul police officers on Saturday fatally shot an armed man while trying to confirm, they said, whether he was the person charged with killing his pregnant ex-wife last month before carjacking a vehicle and shooting a second person.

Mychel Allan Stowers, 36, was charged last month with two counts each of second-degree murder, second-degree assault and first-degree carjacking. Prosecutors issued a nationwide warrant for the arrest of Stowers, who has been on the run for weeks.

St. Paul Sgt. Mike Ernster said Saturday night that police received an anonymous report that Stowers was on a bicycle at a laundromat in the West Seventh neighborhood. After a man showed up on a bike at the business, police got another call stating it was Stowers.

Officers waited until the man left the laundromat before approaching him in an attempt to confirm his identify, Ernster said. Police said the man had a handgun and that officers shot him just after 1:45 p.m., near the intersection of Bay Street and Watson Avenue. He was taken to Regions Hospital, where he died of his injuries. No officers were injured in the shooting.

Ernster would not confirm Saturday if the man was Stowers. He said the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension would release the man’s identity as part of its investigation, and that BCA investigators would show whether he had pointed a gun at police.

More than six St. Paul officers are on administrative leave following the shooting, including those who witnessed it and whoever fired a weapon. Ernster didn’t say how many officers shot at the man or how many shots were fired, but he said that all officers involved in the shooting were wearing body cameras that were operating.

According to charging documents, Stowers killed Damara Alexis Stowers, 35, who was found dead in her North End apartment with multiple gunshot wounds on Oct. 19; she was eight or nine weeks pregnant when she died. He called a Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office employee that day to say he had shot someone and wanted to turn himself in, but he never did.

Police say other evidence linked Stowers to the killing, and that he carjacked and shot someone else shortly after the killing.

Stowers was released this year from prison after doing time for the second-degree intentional murder in 2008 of a man in a drug deal. He was released on parole about seven months ago.

Charging documents say Stowers was living at a halfway house and was granted a pass to visit his ex-wife at her apartment on the day she was killed. He filed for divorce from Damara Stowers in June, and reported they separated the same day in March that he was released on parole.

The shooting comes nearly two weeks after St. Paul officers shot an armed man who was later charged with killing three people inside a tent at a Minneapolis homeless encampment. The suspect, Earl Bennett, 40, was listed in critical condition after the shooting and remains in custody.

Bennett, who was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, is also charged with attempted first-degree murder in connection with a shooting at a Minneapolis sober home.

Staff writer Kyeland Jackson contributed to this story.